Mirroring the way wrestlers have been popping from federation to federation
in the last year, both the WWF and WCW switched videogame companies last
year. WCW left long-time partner THQ and joined up with Electronic Arts; THQ
then snapped up the WWF license when they left their long-time partner
Acclaim. For a while this left Acclaim without a company to use in what was
generally considered the best videogame wrestling engine in this country.
But not a long while.

Francine can battle Dawn Marie in the new ECW Hardcore Revolution.

Last week Acclaim released ECW-Hardcore Revolution, the first videogame
based on that upstart federation, Extreme Championship Wrestling.

Featuring over 55 wrestlers including 11 jobbers and a few names from ECW's
past, Hardcore Revolution has a lot of options when it comes to violence.
Lots of matches too, including the three-way dance, cage matches, Stable
matches, and yes, you asked for it - the Barbed Wire Match.

Blood flows freely in the game and the language is as close to the real
thing as you can get. (They draw the line at the actual use of the...ahem,
four-letter euphamism for carnal knowledge, if you know what I mean.) But
fear not, watchdog groups everywhere - the blood and cussin' are easily
turned off by parents worried enough about the effect of videogame
violence on their impressionable angels (provided they can get the little
monsters to show them HOW...).

Joey Styles does the play-by-play alone, featuring such memorable
exaggerations as "He's Dead!" and about 736 different versions of "Oh my
GOD!!!" He's a lot less talkative than the commentators have been in
previous games, something I was disappointed by; the commentary has always
been a plus in the Acclaim games. Also, all your favorite announcers are
available as wrestlers; Joel Gertner and Cyrus can finally give each other
the butt-tanning you've always wanted to see.

This game uses Acclaim's wrestling engine, previously seen in WWF Attitude.
Acclaim had to rush the release for Attitude to make it in time before the
license ran out, so not everything they wanted to get into the game made it.
With ECW, they've had the time to make all the fixes and improvements they
wanted to put in that game, and a lot more. Moves are smoother, graphics
are cleaner and sharper and there's a lot less phantom moves that get sold
even tho they didn't come near connecting.

To be honest, this game can be summed up as a revved-up "More of the Same",
but considering that Acclaim's engine is pretty strong, that's not a bad
thing. There's enough improvements to make the purchase worth it,
especially if you're a big time ECW fan, and are sick of spending three
hours in Create-a-Wrestler mode to create them all. But I'd say this should
be the last game we see from this engine - with the stuff EA and THQ are
doing, the bar has been raised, and we need to see some real innovations in
the next game.

But be patient; Acclaim is already working on their second ECW game, due
out sometime this summer. They promise that with it, once again Acclaim
will be on top of the heap.

Vinnie Bartilucci was born on Prince Edward Island, spirited to New York at
a young age, and is living quietly as a computer programmer in New York. He
has a wife, a daughter named after a character from "A Pup Named Scooby Doo"
and an apartment too small for their collection of toys and movies. He has
annoyed the readers of SLAM! Wrestling before with the following articles: